Quote: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. (Attrib Abraham Lincoln)

Sat Mar 29 20:23:52 UTC 2014

Continuing a thread from February 2013...

The QI website now has an entry for the popular but apocryphal Lincoln
axe sharpening quotation. Great thanks to Bonnie who enabled
examination of an important 1956 citation.

Special thanks to the kind librarian at the University of Central
Florida who continued to help me after discovering that the GB page
number of 354 was impossible because 200 was the largest page number
in the two target volumes. The page number riddle was eventually
solved.

Thanks also to Barry for his fine research efforts on this topic.

To Cut Down a Tree in Five Minutes Spend Three Minutes Sharpening Your Axe
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/29/sharp-axe/

Garson

On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 12:05 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> Barry has updated his entry on this topic with some additional
> valuable citations. For example, he has a 1901 cite for the following
> thematically related expression:
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Time spent in sharpening the axe may well be spared from swinging it.
> [End excerpt]
>
> http://bit.ly/1kslPEe
>
> Thanks for your response, Dan. The citation you gave does provide an
> intriguing contrast.
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 5:32 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Quote: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend
>>               the first four sharpening the axe. (Attrib Abraham Lincoln)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> FYI, I find this quote interesting because there is a long-standing quote
>> taking a contrary position:
>>
>> "If the iron is blunt whet the edge, but do not always be sharpening the
>> axe and never using it."
>>
>> Annual Report of the State Department of Health of New York for the Year
>> Ending December 31 (1909)
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=53oXAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22sharpening%20the%20axe%22&pg=PA652#v=onepage&q=%22sharpening%20the%20axe%22&f=false
>>
>>
>> DanG
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:55 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
>> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Quote: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will
>>> spend the
>>>               first four sharpening the axe. (Attrib Abraham Lincoln)
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> The quotation given in the subject line probably was not spoken or
>>> written by Abraham Lincoln, and I have been asked to explore its
>>> provenance.
>>>
>>> Barry Popik has performed excellent work tracing this saying back to
>>> 1983. Here is a link:
>>>
>>> http://bit.ly/1kslPEe
>>>
>>> In my initial search I have found matches for a version of the saying
>>> with time measured in minutes instead of hours starting in the 1950s.
>>> Some of these citations are unverified matches in Google Books
>>> (visible only as snippets). Hence, I may contact individuals off-list
>>> for help in verification.
>>>
>>> GB has matches in documents with GB dates of 1953, 1955, and 1956, but
>>> I suspect that the two earlier dates are inaccurate, and all the
>>> matches lead to the same document. Below is my best guess of the
>>> accurate bibliographic data:
>>>
>>>
>>> Title: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the New York State
>>> Horticultural Society.
>>> Author: American Pomological Society.
>>> Year: 1956
>>> Volume: 70
>>> Quote Page: 259
>>> (Google Books snippet data may be inaccurate)
>>>
>>> http://books.google.com/books?id=QnUPAQAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22to+chop%22
>>>
>>> [Begin extracted text]
>>> I heard somebody once say that if he were given five minutes to chop
>>> down the biggest tree in all of the northwest, or pay with his life,
>>> he would spend three of those five minutes sharpening his axe; and I
>>> think that that's the thing to do.
>>> [End extracted text]
>>>
>>>
>>> Title: Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies
>>> Author: Farm Foundation (Chicago, Ill.), National Committee on
>>> Agricultural Policy
>>> Year: 1956
>>> Quote Page: 12
>>> (Google Books snippet data may be inaccurate)
>>>
>>> http://books.google.com/books?id=aJhYAAAAYAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22to+chop%22
>>>
>>> [Begin extracted text]
>>> A woodsman was once asked, "What would you do if you had just five
>>> minutes to chop down a tree?" He answered, "I would spend the first
>>> two and a half minutes sharpening my axe."
>>> [End extracted text]
>>>
>>>
>>> Here is instance attributed to Abraham Lincoln circa 1960. This
>>> version uses minutes not hours.
>>>
>>> Journal: Roads and Streets
>>> Uniform Title: Bituminous roads and streets
>>> Year: 1960
>>> Volume: 103
>>> Quote Page: 363
>>> Publisher: Chicago, Gillette Pub. Co.
>>> (Google Books snippet data may be inaccurate; text not visible in snippet)
>>>
>>> http://books.google.com/books?id=hqkmAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22to+chop%22
>>>
>>> [Begin extracted text]
>>> Abraham Lincoln is quoted as having said, "If I had five minutes to
>>> chop down a tree, I'd spend the first three sharpening my axe."
>>> [End extracted text]
>>>
>>>
>>> Here is an instance from NewspaperArchive in 1962. The words are
>>> attributed to an anonymous lumberjack by the prominent football coach
>>> Darrell Royal.
>>>
>>> [ref] 1962 February 8, Port Arthur News Time Out with Corlis Holt
>>> (News Sports Editor), Quote Page 16, Column 1, (NArch Page 31), Port
>>> Arthur, Texas. (NewspaperArchive)[/ref]
>>>
>>> [Begin extracted text]
>>> Royal recalled "in Washington I met a lumberjack who said that if he
>>> were given five minutes to chop down a tree or lose his life if he
>>> failed to do so, he'd spend three of the five minutes sharpening his
>>> axe."
>>> [End extracted text]
>>>
>>>
>>> In 1963 the New York Giants quarterback Y. A. Tittle spoke at an
>>> athletic banquet and employed a version of the saying.
>>>
>>> [ref] 1963 February 26, Salt Lake Tribune, Tittle Wows Ute Banquet by
>>> John Mooney (Tribune Sports Editor), Quote Page 16, Column 6, Salt
>>> Lake City, Utah. (NewspaperArchive)[/ref]
>>>
>>> [Begin extracted text]
>>> "PREPARATION -- If a woodchopper was given just five minutes to chop
>>> down a tree or lose his life, he better spend three minutes sharpening
>>> his ax.
>>> [End extracted text]
>>>
>>> Garson
>>>
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>>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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